Gratitude, Meaning and Purpose
I’ve been thinking about meaning and purpose and how time and reflection have shifted the meaning I make of experiences in life, particularly challenging experiences. November always reminds me to consider what I’m thankful for and why and to notice, over time, the shifts in what makes me feel grateful. I’ve been pondering how time and experience have allowed me to revisit the memories of difficult experiences and see the gifts I’ve uncovered because of them. Because of time and reflection and the creative license that allows me to take ownership of my story, I have come to feel great gratitude for the challenges I’ve been given in life. Yes, I use the word given, as in retrospect, I do see the gifts they held and see them as essential to my journey and growth. As I’ve learned to not only accept who I am but appreciate who I am, I have come to appreciate the experiences and people that have shaped me, too, and some of the shaping was hard and uncomfortable.
I am generally a reflective person, but something about the fall sends me revisiting the colorful parts of my life, and the color in life isn’t always provided by joyous occasions. The color and vibrancy of life come from the hardships I’ve faced, too. The shortening days, the gray skies, and the brightly colored leaves in hues of orange and yellow, gold and deep red send me searching, reflecting, and creating within. I am acknowledging all the colors of my journey and appreciating the diversity of experiences, the celebratory moments, and the hard moments that allow me to ride the waves of this complex, messy, and wonderful life, one day, one season at a time. I am truly grateful for it all, and especially for the ability to reflect and reshape the stories I tell myself that direct my path forward.
What events, experiences, and people have shaped who you are and who you have become? What gives you purpose, little “p” or big “P” purpose? How are your values connected to your purpose, big or small? What has been essential in guiding your purpose? What serves as your guiding light or true north? What meaning do you make of the challenges in life you’ve been given and have overcome? How do you see some of your challenging experiences in life differently with the passage of time? What meaning do you now make of them? How do the meaning and experience influence how you approach obstacles now? How have these experiences in life, both joyful and painful, shaped how you create meaning and how you define your purpose? How do you find gratitude for all of the experiences, events, and people who have been a part of your journey, the journey to becoming you?
Quote(s) I’m pondering:
“Life is lived in the first twenty years, and the remainder is just a reflection.”
~ Graham Greene ~
“Everyone succumbs to finitude. …Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way, they belong to the past. The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of lie, flattens out into a perpetual present. Money, status, all the vanities the preacher of Ecclesiastes described hold so little interest; a chasing after wind, indeed.”
~ Paul Kalanithi ~
What I’m listening to:
First Person Plural: EI and Beyond with Daniel Goleman
First Person Plural: Emotional Intelligence & Beyond, brought to you by Key Step Media, is a podcast about us, the systems we’re a part of, and how we create an emotionally intelligent future. Co-hosted by New York Times best-selling author Daniel Goleman, Hanuman Goleman, and Elizabeth Solomon, this show will go beyond the theory of emotional intelligence, presenting an array of stories that illuminate how emotional intelligence is being put into action. Inspiring you to lead with more mindfulness and resilience, the show will bring you a new awareness of the systems we work, live, and create in.
Learn the 12 emotional intelligence (EI) competencies from Daniel Goleman’s EI model, crucial for developing your inner capacity and impact on the world, becoming an outstanding leader, and building high-performance teams.
Purpose: A Light in the Darkness
Co-hosts Daniel Goleman and Hanuman Goleman reflect on the role of purpose in our overall wellbeing, looking at how purpose is fostered within an organization and the many ways (big and small) it shows up in our lives.
Today’s episode features a wide range of guest appearances, including Psychologist Richard Davidson, Former Ernst & Young Partner and Executive Coach Dot Proux, Oncologist Petra Rietschel, and Executive Coach Kully Jaswal. Each guest provides a distinct perspective on the role of purpose and how we can foster more meaning for a greater sense of well-being.
My notes and key takeaways:
Purpose: doing what you love and are good at and making a difference.
You can transform your life by bringing purpose and well-being in. Meaning + purpose = PEACE. Well-being is the nurturing of capacity and has four pillars:
- Awareness
- Connection – appreciation, kindness, empathy, compassion
- Insight – self-knowledge, knowledge of your narrative and beliefs, healthy relationship with your narrative
- Purpose – identifying your “true north,” self-transcendent purpose, greater good
Purpose can be cultivated. We are motivated by more than our performance goals. In thinking about purpose within the context of a company, he offers an interview and case study with an Ernst & Young coach. She offers that in the corporate context, nothing happens until leadership is onboard, and the transformation to a purpose-driven culture must be authentic.
If you can’t get in touch with “why” you’re here, it is hard to move yourself forward. Little “p” purpose is important. Little “p” purpose can be more like living your values – being kind, for example. This can put you on the path to finding big “P” purpose and can help to sustain you on your journey.
What I’m reading:
When Breath Becomes Air
By Paul Kalanithi
My thoughts and takeaways:
This book popped up as recommended for me, and I was intrigued. I once wanted to be a doctor, and neurosurgeons certainly played an important part in my early life as I had brain surgery at six months old to remove an arachnoid cyst causing hydrocephalus, and then at 10, had another brain surgery when my ventricles stopped draining. Paul Kalanithi moved from New York to Kingman, Arizona, when he was 10 (1987). My parents grew up in Kingman, and I was born there, moving away for good in 1984. When I was 37, I had a stroke that I sincerely feel grateful for as it changed the trajectory of my path and brought me to live more fully. I appreciated his writing and his desire to live a meaningful life and pass from life well. I think often of the finitude of life as I also strive to live a life of meaning and purpose, a life well lived.
What Amazon has to say:
Number-one New York Times best seller. Pulitzer Prize finalist.
This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question: What makes a life worth living?
Named one of the best books of the year by:
- The New York Times Book Review
- People
- NPR
- The Washington Post
- Slate
- Harper’s Bazaar
- Time Out New York
- Publishers Weekly
- BookPage
Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational Memoir.
At the age of 36, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next, he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed”, as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.
What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.
Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015 while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.'” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient from a brilliant writer who became both.
You can sign up to receive my Three Thoughts for Thursday post as an email on the third Thursday of every month by clicking here. If you’ve missed any of my Three Thoughts, you can find them all on my blog. If you enjoyed this post, take a look at October’s Three Thoughts and my post, The Climb. You may also be interested in my four-part Lessons of the Run series – Endurance, Resilience, Rest, and Grit.
If you are interested or know someone who may be interested, I also offer leadership and emotional intelligence coaching and workshops. You can find more information on my website, or you can use this link to set up a free 30-minute introduction to coaching session.
Earlier this year, I celebrated the 5th anniversary of my stroke with the writing of this commemorative post, a training run, flowers, pie, and special time with my kids. I continued the celebration by running the Boston Marathon in April, five years after I ran the course for the first time (six weeks after my stroke). Please join me in celebrating these milestones by taking time to celebrate your own milestones and by fully embracing the opportunities in front of you, the value in the little things, and the beauty that surrounds you in this wonderful, messy life.
Last September, I hosted my first local, in-person event here in the Seattle area, Savor the Sweetness. I hosted the event again and had a different but equally fulfilling experience; I think I will be making this an annual event! Contact me for more information or to join the invite list!
I have the privilege of hosting the Emotional Intelligence Special Interest Group for ICFLA. We closed out this year’s sessions on October 24th with guest, Kevin Bush of Teams and Leaders, as he shared with us how we can better Navigate Reactionary Situations and Employ Empathy in the Workplace and continue the EI learning journey. You do not need to be a coach or a member of ICFLA to attend these sessions. Please join me for our sessions in 2024!
If you are interested in joining and co-creating these learning communities, please use the links above to learn more about ICFLA’s Emotional Intelligence Special Interest Group and the Women’s Events. I hope you will come along for the journey!
I’m always looking for new inspiration, new books to read, and new podcasts to listen to, so please send your suggestions my way or comment on this post to offer some new recommendations!
As always, thank you for your continued support and readership! Stay strong, stay brave, stay true to you!
Wishing you a season of meaning, purpose, and gratitude for all of life’s experiences that have made you wonderfully, perfectly you! I am grateful for you! Thank you for being a part of my journey!
Desiree Briel Rodi Consulting & Coaching 